Declaring independence from Great Britain required the formation of new governments.

But why did Americans want and need new governments? And how did their interactions and experiences with their old, colonial governments inform their decisions to create new governments?

Barbara Clark Smith, a curator in the division of political history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the author of The Freedoms We Lost: Consent and Resistance in Revolutionary America, leads us on an exploration of how Americans interacted with their government before the American Revolution and how the Revolution changed their interaction and ideas about government.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/154

 

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute 
• William and Mary Quarterly
• OI Reader App
• William and Mary Quarterly-Journal of the Early Republic joint issue on the American Revolution special discount

 

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 036: Abigail Swingen, Competing Visions of Empire
• Episode 049: Malcolm Gaskill, How the English Became American
• Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
• Episode 150: Abigail Adams, Revolutionary Speculator
• Episode 152: Origins of the American Revolution
• Episode 153: Governments of the American Revolution
• Bonus: J.L. Bell, The Boston Stamp Act Riots

 

 

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